


Ten things to do at Torchwood when you're dead

by Netgirl_y2k



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-23
Updated: 2009-11-23
Packaged: 2017-10-03 15:05:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/pseuds/Netgirl_y2k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you ever get the feeling that we're the best two?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten things to do at Torchwood when you're dead

1.  
It had been three weeks since anything had emerged from the rift and tried to destroy Cardiff, and Team Torchwood were keeping busy by cataloguing the alien artefacts in the vault.

"I don't remember this one," said Owen, hefting a long metallic tube covered in buttons and switches.

"What does it do?" asked Gwen, opening a box labelled _'miscellaneous weapons.'_

"I don't know," answered Tosh. "None of my scans could penetrate it."

"Hey!" called Ianto. "Watch where you point that-"

"Oh," said Owen dully, "that's what it does."

"Jack!" called Gwen. "You'd better come down here. Owen's just vaporised Ianto and Tosh."

*

"Are we dead?" asked Toshiko.

Ianto quickly took in the fact that nobody could see them, no one could hear them speak, and he appeared able to walk through solid objects (the solid object in question being Owen.)

"Yup, looks like."

  
2.  
"Is this what you thought being dead would be like?" Tosh asked, after they'd spent the better part of a week trying and failing to get the attention of their former colleagues.

"Becoming the Torchwood ghost and haunting the hub?" A smile tugged at the corner of Ianto's mouth, "It's exactly what I thought being dead would be like."

"When I joined Torchwood they did tell me that I could never leave. I didn't think they meant it this literally."

"I suppose we can't complain that we weren't warned."

"Maybe." Tosh smiled, "But if I see a bright light I'm going to walk towards it."

  
3.  
"I spy with my little eye something beginning with p?"

"Pterodactyl, that was easy."

"You come up with something better, then."

"I spy with my little eye something beginning with w?"

"Weevil, obviously."

"Nope," Ianto smirked.

"Walls? Walkways?"

"You've got no imagination, Tosh."

"Okay, I give up. Just tell me."

"Wanker."

Toshiko raised an eyebrow at Ianto, who nodded down to where they could see Owen working in the morgue. She blushed and turned away, "He's not that bad."

"Tosh, he accidentally vaporised us."

"Nobody's perfect."

  
4.  
Ianto was in Jack's office, watching the captain as he worked. Jack was oblivious to his presence.

"Jack will work out that we're still here," he said, as Toshiko walked through the wall behind him. "If anyone can fix this, it'll be him."

Tosh gave him a look that could only be described as pitying.

  
5.  
Tosh winced in sympathy as Owen thumped the computer screen.

"Jack, we need to get someone in who knows how to work these computers. I can't get into World of Warcraft, never mind the CCTV system."

"Do you really think they'll replace us?" Tosh asked. "Just like that."

Ianto took her hand and squeezed, "Even if they do, they'll never find someone who can work alien tech as well as you."

"Jack! Owen!" Gwen called up from the kitchen, "Do either of you know how to work this espresso machine?"

Ianto couldn't stop the smirk creeping across his face, "And at least they've got their priorities in order."

  
6.  
Toshiko had taken to reading the morning paper over Gwen's shoulder. Today she gave up when Gwen got two across on the crossword wrong, and went in search of Ianto. She found him in the morgue, staring intently at a tray of scalpels.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to move these using the power of my mind," Ianto said in his best deadpan tone.

"You know, if we could learn to move objects we could get a message to the others, let them know that we're still here."

"That's a good idea too, I suppose."

"Why were you trying to do it?"

"Well," he answered eventually, "what's the point in being a ghost if you can't haunt people properly?"

  
7.  
Tosh hadn't seen Ianto all day. Earlier, she hadn't noticed his absence as much. With Jack, Owen and Gwen in the hub she felt like she was still part of the team, even if they didn't know she was here. But now they'd all gone home, even the pterodactyl had retreated to her perch high in the ceiling, and Tosh really wished Ianto was here to keep her company. 

It was nearing dawn when he returned. "Where have you been?"

"Exploring. Did you know there's a whole level of cells down there we've never been in?"

Tosh snorted with disinterest.

"There's a skeleton in one of them with three heads."

She forgot she was meant to be angry with him, "Three heads, really?"

  
8.  
They were sitting on one of the walkways that crisscrossed the hub, dangling their legs over the side and listing all the things they missed about being alive.

"I miss coffee."

"I miss work."

"I would kill for a slice of pizza."

"And a vodka and tonic.”

"I miss my flat."

"I miss anywhere that's not the hub."

"I miss sex."

Toshiko blushed profusely, "Ianto?”

"Yeah?"

"Do you think it's weird that neither of us has any family or friends outside Torchwood that we miss?"

"A little bit, yeah."

  
9.  
"So what exactly was it you and Jack did with that stopwatch?"

When Ianto told her, Toshiko blushed more than any ghost had a right to.

  
10.  
"Did our psychic friend get through the rift okay?" Jack asked when Gwen got back to the hub.

"Yeah, although he did say something kind of odd just before he left. He said 'that wasn't the vaporise button.'"

Together Jack, Gwen and Owen turned to look at the device responsible for Ianto and Tosh's disappearance, which was still sitting on Jack's desk.

"He didn't mean-"

"They're not-"

"You don't think-"

*

The last thing Ianto said to Tosh before the others found the right sequence of buttons to bring them back to the land of the living was: "Do you ever get the feeling that we're the best two?"


End file.
